In January 1947, the first Pan-African Congress of Prehistory and Palaeontology was held in Nairobi, Kenya. The idea was very much Louis Leakey’s ‘brainchild’.204 Louis was Richard’s father and became perhaps the most well-known prehistorian of his time, to a large extent because he was a ‘great believer in popularization’ and had a kind of ‘entrepreneurial, showbiz manner’.205 It was precisely Leakey’s ‘constant use of newspapers’ which ‘had further eroded his position’ had given him the reputation of being a ‘maverick’.206 Leakey’s determination to organise ‘a memorable meeting’ transformed the 1947 congress into something that could give him ‘the chance to restore some of the luster he had lost.’207 In addition, it seemed that Leakey also had the more ‘scientific’
goal of reinforcing his research and the general claim that Africa was the birthplace of man.208 In Leakey's times, the Piltdown man, found in England, still had its prominent position as the earliest ancestor of man, but Leakey strongly believed that in Africa something older could be found. He made a couple of controversial findings that finally did not worked but that showed how Leakey, like Gibert, had a clear scientific agenda.209 Therefore, like Gibert, Leakey wanted to restore his own image, achieve international recognition and funding, and push forward a specific scientific claim. Like Gibert, Leakey wanted to have the most prominent scientists at ‘his’ congress and travelled to England and France and sent several letters in order to make this happen.210 Later, he used the positive responses of these scientists to get funding from the Kenyan government.211 In addition, during the congress, attendees could also admire Leakey’s fossil discoveries which were
‘carefully arranged’.212 Leakey and his team organised a ‘safari’ with more than 60 attendees to explore Olduvai Gorge, among many other sites.213 According to Delta Willis, author of a book on Leakey’s family, ‘the meeting itself offered a place to exchange ideas, but perhaps the greatest benefit was future research […] Leakey’s plan of interesting a wider group of scientists proved to be a profound success.’214
Leakey’s Pan-African Congress is just another example of how the organisation of a large conference can have several goals beyond gathering scientists and stimulating professional debate.
204 Willis 1992, 51.
205 There are several biographies of Leakey’s family used here, which always picture Louis that way. For the exact quotes see Cole 1975, 15 and Morell 1995, 139.
206 Morell 1995, 139.
207 Morell 1995, 140.
208 Bowman-Kruhm 2005, 51 and Morell 1995, 139.
209 For Leakey's claims and his early controversial claim see the chapter ‘Disaster at Kanam’, Morell 1995, 80-93.
210 Willis 1992, 51 and Morell 1995, 139.
211 Morell 1995, 140.
212 Willis 1992, 52 and Morell 1995, 142.
213 Willis 1992, 52 and Morell 1995, 142-143.
214 Willis 1992, 53.
Reinforcing specific and general scientific claims, boosting the significance of research projects, and recovering individual or general prestige could be some of the ‘hidden’ objectives of these meetings.215 Moreover, during the conferences, organisers use several ‘tools’ to achieve these aims.
These ‘tools’ are deployed in both the scientific and the public arena, creating a mixture of communication channels between both, which conferences of this kind again make quite apparent.
Like Leakey did 50 years earlier, Gibert used big names from the scientific community, fossil displays, and site visits in order to get public and political support and funding, and to convince sceptical scientists. Therefore, in these conferences, the target ‘publics’ multiply; they are composed of more than just scientists. The general public and politicians, as well as journalists, are also actively involved. Moreover, these new ‘publics’ are themselves used as ‘tools’ in interactions with the other sectors. For example, Leakey used the acceptance letters of great scientists to convince politicians and Gibert called on the Queen of Spain to be honorary chair and, thus, an asset to the conference. With these ‘tools’, conferences become a reflection of researchers’ own scientific claims. Therefore, conference success means the validation of their claims, the legitimisation of their research project, and the recovery of their own scientific image and credibility.
For Gibert, this meant not only funding and permits but also a new era for his career, with recovered prestige as a scientist and with his claims validated. Somehow, the whole conference was in itself a ‘tool’ used by Gibert to achieve these aims within the bigger frame of the Orce controversy. It was a ‘show’, a ‘performance’, which became a very important part of the wider Orce Man controversy and of Gibert’s own history. Moreover, during the conference, Gibert forced opponents to go public and to give an opinion on the controversy in an environment that was very favourable to his own claims. It seems that this forced position provoked a subsequent response from critics that again used the media to demolish all the different aspects of the ‘victories’ Gibert had won during the conference.
To sum up, the 1995 Orce International Conference on Human Palaeontology appeared to amplify and concentrate several trends that defined the Orce Man controversy, scientific controversies in general, and even daily scientific practice. ‘Tools’ to ‘convince’ colleagues are always used by scientists, but the Orce conference allows a close analysis of these ‘tools’ and the way they are used. In addition, this ‘concentration’ also revealed Gibert’s and his opponents’
strategies in the scientific controversy, which are no different from those used by other well-known scientists such as Louis Leakey. In this chapter, we have seen again how the Orce conference had a crucial political dimension, mainly in the relationship between scientific practice and politics and in
215 Another example is the search for the First Americans in Brazil compared with the Orce conference in Carandell 2015. See also the conclusions of this thesis.
the uses that scientists and politicians made of one another. This relationship is often hidden from stories of the Orce Man and more generally from conventional stories of scientific practice. Finally, in this analysis the mass media appear as crucial in the way that scientific knowledge is created and disseminated. All these ‘strategies’ and ‘tools’ and their political uses are only valid when they appear in the media; when the public is involved. We can conclude by saying that what Gibert aimed to achieve with the conference (and his opponents with their criticisms) was presented as scientific but was only accomplished through close contact with the public, and would be of little use without it.
4. End
13 October 2007, Venta Micena, Orce. The site where the famous yet almost forgotten Orce Man was found had been closed for many years and almost no scientific research had been carried out there. But on that particular day, it was full of people. Blanca Gibert, Josep’s daughter, played a beautiful song on the viola. Lluís, Josep’s son, spread his father’s ashes on the site. Josep Gibert i Clos had just died of lymphatic cancer.
Along with Josep, the main defender of the Orce Man, the controversy also faded away. The way that Gibert and the famous cranial fragment were marginalized and ignored by peers was in fact a process. The first part of this chapter, devoted to Gibert’s final years, aims to explore how this process occurred, which strategies Gibert’s rivals used to side-line him, and which ones Gibert used to defend himself. Within this analysis we will deal in depth with two of Gibert’s most prominent resources: his popular science book and the innovative scientific analysis of the Orce bone. In the second part, the chapter aims to portray the Orce Man controversy within a wider framework of scientific controversy studies. Does the Orce dispute share features with other controversies? Why was a consensus never reached? Did the Orce controversy ever come to an end?